


Fading

by SilverSiren17



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Canon Compliant, Character Study, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Raven King spoilers!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-21
Updated: 2018-10-21
Packaged: 2019-08-05 11:29:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16367048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilverSiren17/pseuds/SilverSiren17
Summary: Charcter study of Noah, kinda. Try it, I swear it’s actually pretty good...SPOILERS FOR THE RAVEN KING





	Fading

**Author's Note:**

  * For [grittycupcakes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/grittycupcakes/gifts).



Memories work differently for Noah Czerny. They come in flashbacks and fragments, brief bursts of brilliant clarity that flicker in and out of existance as erratically as Noah himself. Sometimes they are of his past life— Whelk and Aglionby, his little sister’s smile, the taste of his mother’s stolen birthday schnapps. More often they are of after he died. Late night car rides with Ronan, watching Adam working, Gansey’s absentmined doodles, the bright mismatched clips in Blue’s hair.        

Sometimes they are of things that haven’t happened yet. Gansey and Blue kissing in the rain, black liquid oozing out of Cabeswater to poison Ronan’s dreams, Glendower dead and gone. Himself, fading away for good.  _Blue Lily, Lily Blue_. The words echo through him with more clarity than anything else. Blue.

He clings to her— to all of them. Gansey once said that Noah is anchored to his bones, that his location on the ley line tethers him to reality. It’s true that having his corpse on the line was important, that he feels the hum of the ley at the back of his mind almost as clearly as Adam does. But it’s not why he’s  _here_. Why he’s still  _Noah_ , not simply the dead, decaying ghul he knows he is becoming. Not really.

The real reason is his friends. It’s Gansey, who was the first to see him in years, the first since his death to actually notice him. Gansey who drew Noah seamlessly into his half-formed group of friends. Gansey who seeks the ley line with as much fervor as Whelk ever did, but who Noah somehow knows would never— could never— betray his friends as Whelk betrayed Noah. Gansey who doesn’t care that Noah is dead and decaying, cold and scared. Gansey who trusts Noah implicitly in a way that Whelk couldn’t. Gansey who keeps him human.

It’s Ronan, bright and broken, full of fire and the beautiful, broken pieces of his shattered childhood that are as deadly to Ronan as they are to everyone else. Ronan who shows his fierce, loyal version of love in the only way he knows how, with late night car races Noah alone is allowed to attend, with dreams and barbs, with secrets and snide remarks. Ronan who remembers Noah even when the others don’t.

It’s Adam, clingings to his pride, strong and shattered and unbreakable. Adam, made of dust and hope, of desperation, sepia sunlight and ancient magic. It’s sitting beside him in his parents trailer, offering what silent comfort he can as Adam’s cheek swells purple and angry. It’s the shared understanding of fear and helplessness, the need to be more than they are. It’s Adam, who needs Noah to be there when nobody else can.

It’s Blue. Strange, sensible, excentric Blue with ber lampshade dresses and her spiky hair. Blue who has seen what Noah really is and doesn’t care— no, that’s not true, she cares. She brims full of grief and pity and anger for Noah, but she loves him anyway. Blue who let him kiss her and replied softly to his whispered confession that she would have said yes when he asked her out, if he was alive. To Blue, Noah isn’t just a sad, dead thing, he’s one of her Raven Boys, though he still isn’t sure why.

He doesn’t think he would have been friends with them when he was alive—or no, that is Blue’s thought. Or it  _was_ her thought, or it _will be_ her thought. Time isn’t as linear as it once was. It’s not even a loop, or a figure eight or a goddam slinky (he’s pretty sure Gansey has said those words already, hasn’t he?). Not for Noah at least. For him, time is a tangled web of threads made of past and present and future, all twisted up with the ley line and a greywarren’s dreams. He can only stumble through the void of time, sliding from one mismatched moment to the next. He’s never sure when he is anymore, what has happened already, and what has yet to come.

It wasn’t so bad before. Before his bones were robbed of the ley line’s energy. Before they knew what he was. Before Adam’s sacrifice. But now (soon?) it is harder. Time is less reliable. Cabeswater has a new favorite now, and Noah gets only the scraps of erratic energy that is left over. He doesn’t begrudge it. He knows what he is. He knows that Adam is so much  _more_ than he ever was, than he ever could be. They all are.

In a way he’s glad to know that he is already gone. He hs seen how far the threads will take him. He knows there is no Glendower, no favor to be had. He knows he will never be alive again, no matter what his friends whisper when they think he isn’t listening. He knows he can‘t tell them.

He tries to warn them sometimes. To tell them about demons and dead kings and dying dreams. The words always come out wrong.  _You don’t know!_ He screams at Blue and Gansey, but when they ask what he means he can no longer remember. He just knows that they  _don’t_ and they _should._ They think he’s finally losing himself. That his soul is too decayed, too damaged, and perhaps they’re right. He can feel pieces of himself falling away little by little, the memories fading into a muddled mess of  _now_ and _then_ and  _will be_ that he can never seem to put in order.

But he must hold on. Not for much longer, just until he can find the moment he needs. It’s close, he can feel it. He wasn’t psychic when he was alive, but being without a physical body makes it easier. Noah reaches for the moment— he misses and falls into another.

He’s in a gelato parlour, the music turned up loud, the table groaning with multicolored bowls. Friendship. Laughter. Joy. The first day Blue joined them, the day they found Cabeswater. For a moment he lets himself bask in it, the most alive he’s felt in a long time. Then he forces himself back, back, back through the swirling miasma of time. It comes to him easily.

Two boys, miles apart, dying together on the ley line. Connected by time and energy and  _will bes_ and  _could have beens._ By Noah, now. He guides the surge of energy that pulses from the place of his death, pulling it away from Cabeswater’s grasping roots— you’ll have your turn soon, this is more important— and into Gansey’s lifeless body. He waits till the waps leave, till the boy takes another shuddering breath, then he leans in close. 

“You will live because of Glendower. Someone on the ley line is dying when they should not, so you will live when you should not.”

With the knowledge that everything is as it should be, he slips back into the endless void of time. He whispers into the silence five words, knowing they will find them at the right time, in the right place. Then he lets the faded, fragmented pieces of himself go. He quietly slips from time, leaving only the echo of those whispered words in his wake. 

“Goodbye. Don’t throw it away.”

**Author's Note:**

> Well, I hope you liked it! If you did please leave a comment or kudos! Thanks for reading!


End file.
